Medialens - 'correcting the distorted vision of the corporate media' - is a great organisation which frequently has refreshing takes on world news - if you don't get their 'Cogitations' then I would strongly urge you do - the recent one on Mind Training had much of interest about how difficult it can be to appreciate the extent to which conditioning prompts us to ignore or reject versions of happiness.Photo: Whiteshill view
David Edwards of Medialens writes:
Psychologist Oliver James provides an interesting example of this phenomenon in his book, Affluenza. James describes an account of his interview with Liz, a thirty-two year old full-time mother of a six-month old daughter. He asked Liz how she would feel if she took six years off work to look after her daughter and have a second child. Liz responded: “I think I would go mad if I stayed at home for that time because I would be giving my child everything of myself, and I wouldn’t be doing something for ‘me’: work, something pleasurable and fulfilling, subject to my child being happy. So when she’s eighteen months I will go back to work because that’s when my maternity leave runs out. But things could change. The last month has been extraordinary, seriously one of the most fulfilling things I’ve ever done. I wake up in the morning and think, ‘I’m going to spend the day with her’ - and it’s gorgeous.’”
James asked: “So why would meeting the needs of a corporation be doing something ‘for me’, but it’s not if you’re looking after your daughter meeting her needs?”
Liz agreed that this was remarkable and struggled to find an answer: “Well, meeting her needs is much more important to me than anything else. Actually, that’s really extraordinary, why is it that paid work is more ‘for me’?... It shouldn’t feel like this, but I feel handicapped if I’m not earning. I’ve been earning for years now, never had to think once, ‘Can I buy this?’, just bought it. Now we’re on one income I can’t just make that decision.”
James commented on this exchange: “I found it fascinating that, when pressed, earning money in order to be able to consume what she wanted was something ‘for me’... Here is a woman who adores being with her daughter and meeting her needs, yet so profoundly has she confused wants with needs that she seriously feels that being able to buy the latest shoes is more ‘for me’ than meeting her daughter’s needs.”
James noted that in cultures where the maternal role is viewed positively, doing things for the baby is doing “something for ‘me’”. Liz has been persuaded by our society to identify self-centred consumption with personal happiness, but not the joy of loving and caring for her child. The impact of social conditioning is such that we are often unable to perceive, or stand up for, our best interests. Instead, we wrongly assume that we have freely chosen what in fact serves someone else‘s interests. Moreover, when we have invested much of our lives in achieving happiness in a particular way, we will find it a real challenge to contradict this strategy. To do so can feel like a betrayal of everything we’ve invested in and fought for in the past. A hundred habits may be urging us to continue as we are.
Oliver James' book looks more at what he calls the Affluenza virus - a set of values which increase our vulnerability to psychological distress: placing a high value on acquiring money and possessions, looking good in the eyes of others and wanting to be famous. As he notes many studies have shown that infection with the virus increases your susceptibility to the commonest mental illnesses: depression, anxiety, substance abuse and personality disorder.
While not new ideas the book is still refreshing - and worth a read - see here an article Oliver James wrote showing how selfish capitalism is responsible for greater prevalence of mental illness among English-speaking nations - a huge missed opportunity by Blair to set us on a different course - as James writes: "Let's stop the pretending: Blatcherism has been an inexcusable missed opportunity to take Britain in a completely different direction (towards Denmark rather than America) and it has significantly contributed to our spiralling rate of mental illness."
6 comments:
And it's also a load of unscientific, anecdotal rubbish.
If you don't believe me, take a look at the figures (which are from scientific studies) at the back of the book, and asks you why he expounds for pages on end about Denmark, and barely writes a word about Italy?
The Medialens piece struck a chord with me; I was a stay-at-home Mum while my children were young and never, at any point, felt that I wasn't doing something valuable. Motherhood is the most important role a woman can fulfill (the same goes for fathers!) and it's a tragedy that society has for so long preferred to measure worth mainly in terms of a person's earning-power.
Unfortunately, economic pressures and the ridiculously-inflated housing market mean that it's going to be ever-harder for a parent to have the option to stay at home, unwaged. Greater options for home-working need exploring by way of providing a half-way house.
Further to my last comment a more detailed critique of James' data interpretation can be found here:
http://www.richarddnorth.com/new_stuff/affluenza.htm
Some very good points raised in the link above (although Richard D North also talks a lot of nonsense)
However the arguments he notes re levels of inequality are important - a point I made in a letter in The Citizen last week - "...society is now more unequal than at any time since the 1930s. Not only is the gap between the rich and poor ever more evident, but the gap between the middle class and super-rich is huge....Labour have failed even to accept that excessive wealth is a problem, yet we know that fairer societies are better for all with reduced crime rates, better health and more."
Nevertheless I'm not prepared to throw the whole argument out - clearly many factors are at play and it would be foolish to put all the blame in one place...
...there is no doubt in my mind that rampant consumerism is deeply damaging - I welcome Oliver James'attention on this issue - too much of our news seems to only value pure economics without looking at how they play a part in shaping societies.
I don't argue that there are no grains of truth in what James has written with regard to inequality and consumerism, rather that using this book as a source for points of debate is a little like using a Michael Moore film for same.
Re last comment:
Agree
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